Rubes by Leigh Rubin for November 27, 2015

Not getting it. Anyone?

??

me too, what am I missing?

I might be wrong, but I think its just a joke that a “neighbor” for a mouse just lives in a adjacent hole. The quickest way for the mouse in panel one to get to his neighbor’s house would have been to take a couple of steps to his right, but he actually went “outside” and to his neighbor’s door.

It was just a confusing concept to get across because what constitutes the indoors of the human house is the “outside” of the homes of the mice and vice versa.

None of us in the office get I either.

huh?

huh?

How can our view be from the inside the wall when the same crack on the right ‘door’ is still there from the ‘inside’?????

@Egrayj, the mouse on the left in panel 2 (receiving the cheese) is the same mouse that is in panel one . He took the door “outside” of his house and went to his next door neighbor’s door.

The nonsensical nature of taking that route is part of the joke.

I agree it is very confusing because the normal thought process would make you think that the original mouse is the one on the right because that would have been the simplest route.

Yeah, that didnt make sense to me either, and over all its not funny.

I guess Black Friday is when you get all the leftovers and the jokes that didn’t make the grade!

Maybe it’s an insult of Swiss cheese? The mouse giving away the cheese is grateful to be rid of it? (And while the floorboard pattern has changed, the position of the fridge has not, so I’m guessing it’s safe to say that the mouse on the right in the second panel is the one who was in the first panel.) Needless to say, this comic did not exactly slay.

Lots of grousing about the mouse housing.

Rubin is brilliantly commenting on the existential mystery of socialization and communication by members of the same species in a frozen and two-dimensional rendering. On the other hand, it could just be a screw-up.

mice do not eat cheese unless they are starving….the idea that mice like cheese is a myth.The use of relating mice and cheese (especially swiss…of which there is a mickey mouse video)is a way to draw audiences in.perhaps the mouse giving away the cheese is thankful because he no longer has to be part of the myth?

He does not have swiss cheese anymore, went next-door for some.

barry Notice where the speech bubbles come from.

The artist hid the right hand hole from us. The surprise that the neighbor is so close may be part of the humor.

Odd isn’t it that the refrig is on the human’s side of the wall.

Cheesy bye bye. We’re gonna Swiss ya!

Maybe Mouse #2 got the cheese out of the same refrigerator, had nibbled holes in it, and Mouse #1 only thinks it’s Swiss cheese because of the holes.